Legal guardianship of Thai child and British citizenship

[LucidLucifer]

My wife and I have been granted by the courts the legal guardianship of our grand-daughter. All parental responsibility has been withdrawn from the mother, who up to that point had sole legal custody. We are now, under Thai law, her legal parents. I am British and wife holds dual Thai and British nationality.

My question is, what position does that leave us in with regard to applying for British citizenship for her?

We went through the whole guardianship process for her long term stability, not to get her back in to the UK, but I am wondering. Due to my work, we are all relocating back to Europe in a few weeks. We already have a Schengen visa for her and all our documents have been legalised by the relevent embassy in order for her to be granted an EEA family permit. If we then choose to take her to the UK to live we can exercise our freedom of movement treaty rights and do so anyway - however, if we can get her a passport without doing the 5 year qualifying period back at home, it would certainly be a bonus.

Thanks in advance for any insight you can give us on this....

Edited June 8, 2015 by LucidLucifer

[7by7]

It is possible that she is already British!

Have a read of Guidance on how adopted children can become British

Obviously part 1 wont apply as she wasn't adopted in the UK.

I'm not sure if she would come under part 2, in which case she automatically became British once you had legally adopted her, or part 3, in which case she will need to apply for registration as British.

[LucidLucifer]

Thanks for the reply, although the route we have taken isn't the adoption route, so to speak. We began that through the Child Adoption Centre but it was becoming increasingly drawn out. We instead applied directly to the courts through our lawyer, who did a fantastic job in a fraction of the time.

We are now her legal guardians/parents under Thai law. It isn't quite the same as having adopted her, although the difference is only slight. I hope that makes sense.

[steady]

If you return to the UK to live then a way of getting citizenship a lot quicker than the 5 years is to do a British adoption. I did it about 2 years ago for our niece. We arrived in the UK and just felt that as our niece had stayed with us for about 4 years by that point it seemed a way to get her established in the UK quicker, it also gets her British citizenship other than by descent (which my natural children can't get, being born in Thailand). I'm a bit of a worrier and cynical and wanted her protected from the vagaries of British politicians as soon as possible.

The process took us about a year to complete and the court wanted lots of paperwork, which I assume that you will have. We only had a Kor Phor 14 and proof of living together. It cost just under 2,000 pounds all in including court stamps, solicitor and lots of documents couriered to and from Thailand for one reason or another. The process also involved local authority social workers and another solicitor working on behalf of the court.

It's something to consider. It's definitely the right answer for our family.